WASHINGTON — A proposal to limit debate on judicial nominees has two old lions of the Senate clashing over historical accuracy, if not moral supremacy.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah and a veteran of 28 years in the Senate, bared his teeth Thursday at Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., himself a veteran of 46 years in the Senate, over whether the minority party — in this case the Democrats — should be allowed to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominees.

Hatch says no. Byrd, in recent speeches, says yes.

"The winning-is-everything philosophy so beloved by Americans may, without careful balance, obscure the goal of justice for all that must be the aim of a representative democracy," Byrd said. "Demeaning minority views, characterizing opposition as obstructionist, these are first steps down the dark alley of subjugating rights."

Byrd, considered by many to be a leading expert on Senate history, rules and procedure, said "it is ridiculous" to suggest that a majority in the Senate should guarantee confirmation and that such a practice would reduce the constitutional advise-and-consent function of the Senate to a mere rubber stamping of presidential judicial appointments "whenever the president's party controls the Senate."

But Hatch chided his "good friend" from West Virginia over what he said was Byrd's revisionist history, pointing out that Democratic senators today are the first in the history of the Senate to filibuster judicial nominees. Historically, he said, the filibuster was reserved for legislation.

That changed two years ago when Democrats began holding up certain nominees.

"I must confess I was surprised that someone with such knowledge of the traditions and rules of this body would appear so willing to abandon tradition," Hatch said of Byrd.

Democrats have used filibusters, Hatch said, to block nominees they consider to be too conservative, including Utahn Tom Griffith, the general counsel at Brigham Young University who has been nominated to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Griffith was re-nominated this year and earlier this week received yet another hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Hatch attacked Byrd's argument point by point during Senate floor time Thursday, and he argued that Democrats have got their history plain wrong.

"I object to his claim that returning to our tradition regarding judicial nominations would be an example of how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends," Hatch said. "There is nothing cruel or unjust about the Senate returning to our traditional advise and consent role regarding judicial nominations."

Hatch also pointed out that when Democrats were in control of the Senate, they even proposed doing away with legislative filibusters. And Byrd was part of that effort.

"He may certainly believe that the changes he sought were warranted, while the change we may seek today is not," Hatch said. "But that difference of opinion does not make his attempts to limit debate, even on legislation, right and just, while any attempt to do so today on judicial nominations cruel and unjust."

Republicans, who expanded their majority in the Senate in the last election, have been increasingly frustrated by Democrats' willingness to filibuster controversial nominees rather than give them an up or down vote.

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E-mail: spang@desnews.com